As a liberal, I can play this argument too: It starts with short-term tax cuts to stimulate spending after a recession. Then later on the short-term has become a decade and then permanent.

And as a Liberal you ignore inconvenient facts. Facts such as the origin of the income tax and how it has not always been around. Or how it was originally passed by liberals as a "soak the rich" amendment (class warfare at its finest) that eventually was being payed by everyone and included a 25% starting bracket within 20 years of its passage. Or shall we look at Social Security, which has been expanded to included people over the years who were never supposed to have been covered under the original scheme. Or Medicaid, which last year cost over $700 billion more than the Medicaid tax brought in. So yes, you do work incrementally.

That's so typically american - whenever I buy something, I'm expected to look and see if I paid tax. Then I'm supposed to put aside a percentage of that, then declare it and pay it in my tax return. Seems insane to me.

And typically European, both apathetic and completely misunderstanding. If you do not buy it from a physical store, the store charges the tax and you do not even need to look. It is only for online ordering and mail order that you need to even consider it.

In Europe, I can buy something in any country in the union, tax is paid there and then and I can take my item home with me with no further duties or taxes. The same goes if I buy online from any country in the union.

In the US, you can do the same with the exception of internet/mail ordering. Quit trying to make this seem harder than it really is.

It's one of the things I hate about visiting the US - what you see is NOT what you pay. I'm used to seeing a price on a shelf, taking the item to the till and giving them the amount of money that the price on the shelf said I would have to.

So you dislike the tax system that actually lets you see how much the government is charging you for the purchase. And apparently averse to any change in that.

It's one of the reasons European visitors don't tip too well over there - we just got surprised with the bill being more than we were expecting until we get used to it, now you want MORE ?:p

And here you're just being an ass, regardless of it being true or not.

A Use Tax is basically a Sales Tax. A VAT is something slightly different, but with major effects. A Use/Sales tax is a tax levied on the final price of an item. A VAT is levied every time the item is transferred/incorporated all the way up the production chain. For example, the raw materials used in a capacitor placed on a mother board used in a computer. In a sales tax, the final cost of the computer is taxed. Under VAT, there is a tax applied on the price increase at each stage of sale. If you're talking something produced and sold entirely in country, there is no difference. However, anything that is produced outside of the country is not taxed under VAT but is effectively taxed user a sales tax. For items sold outside of the country, the reverse is true. This basically has the end effect of a sales tax treating imports and domestic production equally which a VAT gives a penalty to domestically produced goods for goods sold in country.

You ever look at your annual state income tax form? Most, if not all, have a line item from goods ordered from outside the state such as through mail order catalogs or the internet. If you didn't pay state sales tax on it when you bought it, you are supposed to pay a Use Tax on it. So, Tax Holiday? Not so much. Just a matter of people not paying the taxes.

Expanding on the search for alternatives, they also fail to account for changes in technology. Whale Oil was replaced by natural gas. The same will happen when Coal, Oil and Gas start to become scarce. Fusion may or may not be viable by that point but we still have Hydro, Wind and Solar going in the mean time.

In which case your question is the same as to why we have decided it is not acceptable to restrict individuals. The question is then to ask why is it acceptable to restrict the government but not individuals? Well, lets see. Because the government is made up of the people. The people being you, me and every citizen in the country. You, in your home, have the liberty to choose to restrict yourself with regards to your own property or not. The people who own the corporation, which likely includes you if you own any stock, have decided to place no restrictions upon the company you own. The simple reason is, because we have decided to place some restrictions upon ourselves, but not others.

If you want to know why that is, I suspect we all have our own reasons for this. But let me ask you this, since you believe businesses should be restricted. Do you believe you should be restricted in the same reason as the government? Do you believe you getting together with a couple of people for some reason means you should be restricted in the same reason as the government? Do you believe you opening a store means you should be restricted in the same reason as the government? Do you believe you opening a store with a couple people means you should be restricted in the same reason as the government?

A business has no rights that its owner(s) do not. To remove rights from a business is to remove those same rights from the owner(s). So just because someone decides to open a business, alone or with other people, is no reason to deny them rights that those who do not open a business have.

Because of equality under the law. Because of this thing called the 14th amendment. Because we, through our elected representatives, have had the government restrict itself to prevent tyranny by the government.